It took half the regular season, but someone finally topped the Liverpool boys soccer team – and it was the rivals down the road doing the trick.
Cameron Houser’s second-half goal made the difference as Cicero-North Syracuse defeated the Northstars 1-0 last Saturday afternoon at the Gillette Road complex.
A 7-0 start had propelled Liverpool into the state Class AA rankings, all the way up at the no. 5 spot. But now it deal with C-NS, a mere nine days after the Warriors had a claimed a 1-0 decision when they met at LHS Stadium on Sept. 17.
Again, the defenses ruled for much of the game. Each of the back lines were so effective that only a handful of shots got handled by the two goalies, C-NS’s Matt Siegel (three saves) and Liverpool’s Ben Bowers (four saves).
So things were still 0-0 when, in the second half, Roberts, drawing in Liverpool players as he neared the net, passed it to Houser, who beat Bowers for the eventual game-winner.
C-NS arrived at this game coming off its second draw of the season with Baldwinsville last Tuesday night – only this time, it ended 2-2, rather than the 0-0 standoff they first had at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium two weeks earlier.
They were still 0-0 going into the second half, but the Northstars converted less than three minutes into that frame with Austin Mizell’s goal, assisted by Evan Gakeler, to break the long scoreless stalemate between the two sides.
B’ville tied it eight minutes later, and then seized a 2-1 lead off a successful corner kick as Tyler Luciano and Evan Ingersoll earned the goals, while Josh Doback picked up an assist.
As it has done many times this fall, though, C-NS got a late conversion, tying it again with 7:09 left thanks to its own successful conversion of a corner kick, Cameron Houser finding the net off a feed from Nolan Byrnes.
Following that, the Northstars and Bees went through the rest of regulation, and 20 tense minutes of overtime without settling anything. Matt Siegel finished with seven saves.
By contrast, Liverpool, winning its seventh game in a row, prevailed 5-0 at Auburn, a game that required some patience since the Warriors only led 1-0 at halftime, constantly stuffed by Maroons goalie Mike Morrissey, who had 10 saves.
Ultimately, Liverpool got away, helped by goals from five different players. Jeff Meyers augmented his single tally with two assists as George Betobaum, A.J. Sinclair, Bryce Everts and Abe Haley also found the net. Marques Wright and Jacob Munski picked up assists.
Now, in the aftermath of its first blemish, Liverpool would get tested again Tuesday against Nottingham before playing Corcoran Thursday and Utica Proctor on Saturday afternoon. By contrast, C-NS, who is 5-3-3 overall, is off this week, not resuming until its own game with Nottingham next Monday night.